


And time will heal all your troubles away

by kittysorceress



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Rey Needs A Hug, Short One Shot, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, The Resistance Probably Collectively Needs A Hug Too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 17:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13816092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittysorceress/pseuds/kittysorceress
Summary: The bond between them is like a veil of gossamer in the Force, silky and nearly invisible to his touch. Any more than a slight brush and he feels the hard steel of her mental barriers.It has been nearly five years since the Battle of Crait and he is ready for this torment to end.





	And time will heal all your troubles away

The bond between them is like a veil of gossamer in the Force, silky and nearly invisible to his touch. Any more than a slight brush and he feels the hard steel of her mental barriers. It is a daily exercise: a mental caress against the soft film, a gentle press, then cold resistance, rejection.

Each evening, a ritual that is slowly consuming his being.

Touch. Denial. Nothingness. Loneliness.

It has been nearly five years since the Battle of Crait and he is ready for this torment to end.

Since the death of Snoke, Kylo has found that that, despite all that he had been taught, his anger no longer fuels his power in the same way as it did before. Instead, whenever he feels his emotions bubble and well over, rather than being stoked by Dark whispers, they get absorbed by the silky barrier. And, like spilled wine into a tablecloth, they slowly dry up leaving echoes of blossoms where they had once been.

He imagines the fabric of the bond staining with his hate and frustration. New stains with every surge of death he feels in the Force. Sometimes deaths he has caused, sometimes ones he has not, sometimes ones he could not stop, sometimes ones he could.

He slowly begins to feel a new emotion: guilt.

It’s there at the edges of his mind when he orders each invasion, each execution, it curls around his heart and bleeds into the bond and he wonders if, wherever she is, Rey gets satisfaction from knowing that she was right. That perhaps, the path of Supreme Leader of the First Order is not the path for him.

And try as he might to ignore it, the knowledge that Snoke had been the one to poison Kylo with Darkness is a constant thought in a mind no longer oppressed, a growing realisation that there may truly be room for the Light which his mother and uncle once saw in him. Kylo wonders more than once at the irony of Snoke forming the attachment between himself and the scavenger girl, leaving a replacement parasite – no, presence – in his consciousness.

He reflects that he has never been alone with his own thoughts in his entire life. But sometimes, when he grasps at the silk and senses that loneliness and the cold barrier, it certainly feels as if he is. He wonders if it is too late to change…

On one of those days when he feels that surge in the Force, Kylo’s mind brushes something beyond the gossamer, at once softer and more solid than the barrier, and he feels a magnificent swell of hope.

She is here.

There, in the grand chambers that he is now afforded as Supreme Leader, there among the towering columns and glinting black marble, Rey appears before him in simple sand-coloured robes and Kylo is rendered speechless.

Her hair is soft around her face and shoulders and her jaw is set with that resolution he so fondly recognises. But he also senses pain and discomfort, and he can tell that she has been crying.  His stomach lurches at the thought that something, someone has upset her.

He notices that she holds a small object tightly to her chest. Then, with an unwavering and tear-stained gaze, she slowly offers it to him.

_Oh._

Something in his own chest snaps in two and his mind flashes to a dressing table in the Senatorial Complex on Hosnian Prime. An abandoned gift on the table. A gift he had agonised over. The scent of powders and perfumes. Hushed voices ushering an awkward young Jedi out of the way as the Senator is briefed and prepared for her day, as the Princess is readied for a gala.

In that moment, any hope he had felt in seeing Rey turns to ice and the room begins to spin.

He realises that she has not come for him.

Kylo reaches and takes the small carved bone comb from Rey’s outstretched hand. It feels solid and real, but somehow hollow and fuzzy around the edges and he knows for sure this is a Force projection. He stares at it blankly, then drops it as if it had burnt his hand.

He knows why she has come.

He was not ready for this.

He was never going to be ready for this.

“It happened this morning,” Rey says, her soft voice abruptly shaking him from his reverie, “She wanted me to let you know once she had left us. I made her a promise.” He can feel the truthfulness and pain through their bond, but also a reluctance: I’m here because she sent me, not because I want to be, not right now.

He struggles to find his voice and is surprised when he does speak that it seems as small as hers in that moment, “Was it one of ours?” He rakes his brain for any orders he gave, any attacks he planned… _Did I do this?_

Rey bites her lip as if to decide whether to answer him and, after a moment, shakes her head. “No. It was peaceful, in her sleep.”

Kylo wonders if she has answered his spoken question or the one he only asked in his mind. Or both.

He also wonders if he has forgotten how to breathe. He wonders if his chest is collapsing in on itself.

Rey’s expression softens, her voice growing a little stronger, a little kinder, as she explains, “It was a long time coming. She was sick for months, maybe years even. Vacuum exposure does that to the body… you don’t know you’re dying until it’s too late to do anything.”

Kylo turns away from the vision of the woman in front of him. His mouth is dry and it’s like all of the noise and air has gone out of the room. He could be floating in the cold of space. He could be burning on the surface of a sun. Wherever he is, he is alone.

“I’m so sorry, Ben.”

Kylo starts at the sincerity in Rey’s voice as she uses his former name, a name he has not heard since… since Skywalker.

He is truly the last one.

The last of his family. And it aches worse than he imagined. It holds none of the relief he was promised.

It is emptiness.

Nothingness. Solitude.

But it is not as Dark as he had imagined it would be. And that gives him some small comfort, which surprises him.

After a moment lost to this thought, he tries to find the breath to speak.

“What will you do with… is anyone… what about… her… her body?”

He dreads the thought of his mother’s body floating for eternity with the space junk, like his mind is threatening to do in this moment.

She deserves a funeral befitting the princess, the ruler, the leader she was.

_She deserved to know that her son loved her before she died._

He turns back to Rey and she steps closer towards him, looking directly up into his face. They are just a few hands’ width apart and he is surprised to see a glint among the tears in her eyes which almost looks like pride, eyes which he cannot bring himself to look away from.

“Leia joined the Force, just like her brother and their father before them.”

The relief he feels is palpable, but as he lets out a breath he realises that it does little to quell the tide of grief and pain which is washing over him.

Grief and pain which he now realises is not his alone.

He earnestly looks into the face looking back up at him.

“Rey...” he pauses, reaching a hand towards her hair, “Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”

He curses himself as he notices her breath hitch. She looks away from him suddenly, her cheeks flushing red. He brings his hand back to his side, clenching his fist in frustration.

He feels stupid. Lost.

“Don’t,” she whispers, moving back from him and sitting in a chair that doesn’t appear in his vision. “At least, not today.”

With that, Rey learns forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her hands in front of her face, and begins to weep.

Kylo sinks to his knees before her, finding the Force-projected comb on the floor and squeezing it tight in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Rey.”

He bows his head and places his forehead at her feet in supplication.

In that moment, they are not enemies. They are not allies or friends. They are mourners together.

He feels the whirlwind of grief she has brought to him from her own mind, the tangled pain from his own mind.

The soul-crushing loss of Leia Organa, the Princess, the Senator, the General, the mother, the friend.

He joins her in her tears.

And for the first time in five years, the gossamer of their bond shimmers.

 


End file.
